Description
The ‘fake news’ debate, the tweets of American President Donald Trump and the question whether media should speak of immigrants, refugees or asylum seekers underline the importance of language in (social) media. This course teaches you the skills to study the possible meanings of media texts.

How can particular words in these texts be interpreted, which issues are problematized by them, and which omitted aspects are relevant as well? What role do national and ideological contexts play in the production of media texts? And how can you develop a coherent analytical framework and a decent structure for your paper? In a step by process with daily presentations, you address these questions. You write a paper in which you use a qualitative method to analyse a written news article. Interactive lectures and roundtable discussions help you prepare for the different steps in the writing process. Related Summer School courses from Leonhardt are Visual Media Analysis: News Photos, Text-Image Relations and Multimodal Discourses/Frames and Geopolitical Framing Analysis: National Images, World Views and Global Dividing Lines.Goals
▪ Designing an analytical framework to study textual representations in the media, in line with your research objectives;
▪ Applying qualitative methods from critical discourse analysis and framing analysis to study the possible meanings of media texts;
▪ Understanding the role of the national and ideological context in which media operate in the production of news;
▪ Developing your critical thinking skills by productively combining knowledge, assumptions and questions;
▪ Boosting your employability by acquiring valuable skills required for positions in business, government and academia.Course LeaderLeonhardt van Efferink first worked as country risk analyst for 12 years. From 2010 until 2017, he did a PhD that straddles the boundary between geopolitics and media studies (PhD defence in December 2017, final version of thesis due in 2018). Students of his 2017 Summer Schools gave him an average of 9.5/10 for his teaching skills. Former Summer School student Nicole from the Netherlands recommends him because “Leonhardt helped me to approach media texts (including photo and images) in a critical way, combining theory and practical examples to show how media representations reflect and affect society. Unlike many other teachers, however, he made sure that the curriculum matched the needs of each individual student by providing individual feedback and additional reading material.”Prerequisites
▪ Strong motivation and good command of English are essential to get a pass for the course;
▪ Basic knowledge of textual analysis is recommended;
▪ Aimed at Bachelor/ Master/ PhD students in Media Studies/ Journalism/ Cultural Studies/ Linguistics/ Political Sciences/ International Relations/ Geography/ History. Professionals with various backgrounds benefitted as well from taking previous editions of the course. If in doubt, please contact Leonhardt for personal course selection advice.Recommended literature▪ Chandler, D. (2007) Semiotics. The Basics. 2nd Edn. Routledge;
▪ D’Angelo, P., Kuypers, J.A. (eds., 2010) Doing news framing analysis. Empirical and theoretical perspectives. Routledge;
▪ Entman, R.M. (2004) Projections of Power. Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. The University of Chicago Press;
▪ Jørgensen, M. and Phillips, L. (2002) Discourse analysis. As theory and method. SAGE.
▪ Hall, S., Evans, J. and Nixon, S. (2013) Representation. SAGE;
▪ Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis. SAGE;
▪ May, T. (2011) Perspectives on Social Scientific Research. In: Social Research. Issues, Methods and Process. 3rd Edn. Open University Press, chapter 1, pp. 7-27;
▪ Ormston, R., Spencer, L., Barnard, M. and Snape, D. (2014) The Foundations of Qualitative Research. In: Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., McNaughton Nicholls, C. and Ormston, R. Qualitative Research Practice. A Guide For Social Science Students And Researchers. SAGE, chapter 1, pp. 1-25;
▪ Reese, S.D., Gandy, O.H. Jr., Grant, A.E. (eds., 2003) Framing public life. Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates;
▪ Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing newspapers. An approach from critical discourse analysis. Palgrave;
▪ Van Leeuwen, T. (2008) Discourse and practice. New tools for critical discourse analysis. Oxford University Press;
▪ Webb, J. (2009) Understanding representation. SAGE;
▪ Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds., 2016) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies. SAGE;
You are further recommended to read some of these posts on Leonhardt’s website: http://www.geomeans.com/category/getting-started/getting-started-with-media-analysis/ Please note that it is not required to do some reading before the course. If you like to read something, select a book that is closest to your research interests or ask Leonhardt for personal reading advice. For more suggested reading materials, check the following reading lists: http://www.geomeans.com/category/media-representations/reading-lists-media-representations/Teaching methods
▪ Lectures ▪ PresentationsAssessment methods
▪ Attendance ▪ Final Paper ▪ Participation ▪ PresentationKeywords
▪ Analytical Skills ▪ Employability ▪ Qualitative Research Methods ▪ Analytical Framework ▪ Research Design ▪ Research Questions ▪ Positionality ▪ Research Paper Template ▪ Textual Analysis ▪ Critical Discourse Analysis ▪ News Framing ▪ Social Semiotics ▪ Media Representations